Onionsoilder
Reaver
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2007
- Messages
- 3,173
Well, I just won my first Diety game this morning, and it might even be the first for Civ V(Before I won, 0% of people had the "Flawless Strategy" achievement, and after I won 0.1% had it; I'm not exactly sure how Steam rounds the numbers though, so it could be I just pushed the threshold enough to bump it up). It was a Domination win, using Bismark on a Small map. I did it mainly to prove a point about how bad the AI tactics are; don't get me wrong, I love Civ V and find myself One More Turn!ing way more than I did in Civ IV, but the combat leaves a LOT to be desired. Even though I was constantly out-teched, out-manned, out-productioned and out-gunned, I was about to conquer the other three civilizations without a lot of difficulty.
Siam was the first nation I killed, using mostly an assortment of converted barbarian units. I only had spearmen and archers while Siam had swordsmen, but because I was able to bait their swordsmen into disadvantageous positions(using a worker to get their swordsmen to run out of their city and into my archer's range, for instance, only to kill them and take the worker back next turn) it didn't take a lot of time to conquer them.
Rome was the second, and was quite a bit more difficult. They had large amount of archers, legions and ballistae. I ended up waiting a bit until I was able to complete the Great Library in order to grab Steel, then upgraded all my warriors to Longswordsmen. Using 3 of these guys with 3 archers for support, I was able to wipe out around 20 Roman units. This time I was able to win because the Romans didn't try to do something like say, retreating and setting up a wall of legions with a wall of archers behind them; instead, they came at me one or two at a time, and I was able to heal after each battle because my Swordsmen won enough battlers to get March.
Aztecs were last, and somewhere between Rome and Siam. Despite having a huge lead in score over both Rome and myself, as well as a lot larger army, all of their units were either Jaguars, Spearmen or Horsemen. I guess they didn't have Iron or something, because they had no Swordsmen. I ended up getting Machinery and upgrading to crossbowmen, following which I invaded. They actually got Gunpowder just as I invaded, which made things a little tougher, but because they split their army between attacking my cities and defending their capital, and I directed all of my army towards their capital, I was able to overwhelm their city on the fourth turn of the war, winning me the game.
Basically, the AI needs vast improvements to tactics. I would suggest some of the following:
1) When an AI unit is in danger, the AI needs to weigh how valuable that unit is versus damage it can inflict. In particular, the AI should always try to pull back it's archers and siege units when they are in the range of an enemy melee unit, because the enemy melee unit can usually kill them in a single turn while it would take 3-4 turns for the archer to shoot the melee to death. A unit should never stand and fight if it can be killed the next turn, unless it is defending a city or something important like that.
2) AI needs to use formations. This is the main point of having 1UPT. Without utilizing formations, the AI will constantly lose wars to players who do utilize formations. Even putting it's units into very simple formations, such as having melee units in front with archers and siege behind them, will make it a lot more difficult to triumph over the AI. As it is now, they sort of send jumbles of units with the archers and melee mixed together, which makes it far too easy to counter them.
3) AI needs to prioritize on upgrading it's units. I often face swarms(10-20) of low-tier units, which I am able to defeat with just a handful(3-5) of higher-tier units. If the AI is behind on technology I can understand this, but if they have Civil Service researched they shouldn't be running around with Spearmen! If they lack the gold to upgrade, have them disband some obsolete units. 1 Pikeman is more effective than 4 Spearmen, because with 1 UPT you can't use all 4 Spearmen at once.
4) The AI should fortify it's units. I see this sometimes, but not nearly often enough. It would benefit the AI if when they are defending a city, they should place fortified units on adjacent hills and forests in order to restrict the enemy movement. If their opponent and surround the city, it's pretty much game over unless the city has some ridiculous defenses. If they form a line, then they gain flanking bonuses and prevent their units from being surrounded. This is much better than simply having their units wander around their territory on patrol were they can be picked off one by one.
Siam was the first nation I killed, using mostly an assortment of converted barbarian units. I only had spearmen and archers while Siam had swordsmen, but because I was able to bait their swordsmen into disadvantageous positions(using a worker to get their swordsmen to run out of their city and into my archer's range, for instance, only to kill them and take the worker back next turn) it didn't take a lot of time to conquer them.
Rome was the second, and was quite a bit more difficult. They had large amount of archers, legions and ballistae. I ended up waiting a bit until I was able to complete the Great Library in order to grab Steel, then upgraded all my warriors to Longswordsmen. Using 3 of these guys with 3 archers for support, I was able to wipe out around 20 Roman units. This time I was able to win because the Romans didn't try to do something like say, retreating and setting up a wall of legions with a wall of archers behind them; instead, they came at me one or two at a time, and I was able to heal after each battle because my Swordsmen won enough battlers to get March.
Aztecs were last, and somewhere between Rome and Siam. Despite having a huge lead in score over both Rome and myself, as well as a lot larger army, all of their units were either Jaguars, Spearmen or Horsemen. I guess they didn't have Iron or something, because they had no Swordsmen. I ended up getting Machinery and upgrading to crossbowmen, following which I invaded. They actually got Gunpowder just as I invaded, which made things a little tougher, but because they split their army between attacking my cities and defending their capital, and I directed all of my army towards their capital, I was able to overwhelm their city on the fourth turn of the war, winning me the game.
Basically, the AI needs vast improvements to tactics. I would suggest some of the following:
1) When an AI unit is in danger, the AI needs to weigh how valuable that unit is versus damage it can inflict. In particular, the AI should always try to pull back it's archers and siege units when they are in the range of an enemy melee unit, because the enemy melee unit can usually kill them in a single turn while it would take 3-4 turns for the archer to shoot the melee to death. A unit should never stand and fight if it can be killed the next turn, unless it is defending a city or something important like that.
2) AI needs to use formations. This is the main point of having 1UPT. Without utilizing formations, the AI will constantly lose wars to players who do utilize formations. Even putting it's units into very simple formations, such as having melee units in front with archers and siege behind them, will make it a lot more difficult to triumph over the AI. As it is now, they sort of send jumbles of units with the archers and melee mixed together, which makes it far too easy to counter them.
3) AI needs to prioritize on upgrading it's units. I often face swarms(10-20) of low-tier units, which I am able to defeat with just a handful(3-5) of higher-tier units. If the AI is behind on technology I can understand this, but if they have Civil Service researched they shouldn't be running around with Spearmen! If they lack the gold to upgrade, have them disband some obsolete units. 1 Pikeman is more effective than 4 Spearmen, because with 1 UPT you can't use all 4 Spearmen at once.
4) The AI should fortify it's units. I see this sometimes, but not nearly often enough. It would benefit the AI if when they are defending a city, they should place fortified units on adjacent hills and forests in order to restrict the enemy movement. If their opponent and surround the city, it's pretty much game over unless the city has some ridiculous defenses. If they form a line, then they gain flanking bonuses and prevent their units from being surrounded. This is much better than simply having their units wander around their territory on patrol were they can be picked off one by one.
) prepare a list of easy improvements that need to be done to the AI and expedite it to Jon through 2kGreg or something? What do you think?
